The Distance of the Magellanic Clouds

Details The Distance of the Magellanic Clouds The Distance of the Magellanic Clouds

Dec 1982

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1982msngr..30...28d&link_type=abstract

The Messenger, No.30, P. 28, 1982

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

1

Scientific paper

The Magellanic Clouds are very important for many problems of Astrophysics. At a distance of about one tenth of that of the Andromeda Nebula, they are the nearest extragalactic objets, and in many cases the individual stars can be studied in detail. On the other hand, the distance to each Cloud is quite large when compared to the linear dimensions. No distance effect greater than ± 0.15 mag is to be expected on the apparent magnitudes and, practically, all objects can be considered to be at the same distance. A great advantage of the Magellanic Clouds over other groups of stars is that their population, with radial velocities around + 275 km/s for the Large Cloud and + 160 km/s for the Small Cloud, can easily be separated from the Galactic foreground stars. In addition, very little interstellar absorption occurs along the line of sight, either in the Galaxy or in the Clouds. For all these reasons the Magellanic Clouds are a very efficient tool (c.f. the discovery of the period-luminosity relation in the SMC as early as 1904) and considerable efforts have been made to determine their distances

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